7 Ways To Handle Emotional Triggers, Explained By A Psychotherapist

Between 2 and 3 million years ago, our ancestors learned to make and use tools. Since then, every generation has invented more and more sophisticated implements. Today, we own a collection of sophisticated tools to handle household or automotive needs. We also care for our tools, store them for future use, and add to our collection when necessary. We might have some tools we don't know how to use to their full capacity.

All these options are a metaphor for our inner resources, the human toolbox. Thus, each of us stores useful inner tools, strategies to handle the challenges that come to us from people, events, and circumstances. We might have a minimal or a state-of-the-art collection.

We can learn how to make, use, upgrade, care for, and store the tools that can work for a lifetime. Without tools, we are at the mercy of many emotional triggers. With tools ready at hand, we deal with what happens with grace and effectiveness. We can trust that we all have tools, inner resources.

Naming is a primary way of dealing with any trigger. Making a list of our familiar, often-repeated triggers leads us to be on the lookout for them, to have a plan to deal with them: "This is one of my triggers, so let me be careful not to overreact but instead to handle it this way..."

Note your triggers in a journal along with your usual reactions to each of them. Dub each trigger entry a given of life, something that can happen to anyone: "I can expect that this might happen..." After each reaction entry, we write, "I have many options in how I can respond."

Finding the source of a trigger—for example, a specific event, trauma, or transference—is central to freeing ourselves from it. In my own experience, I notice that when I accurately locate where my trigger came from, I reduce its wallop sometimes by as much at 70%! In fact, now I occasionally find what used to trigger me amusing. 

When you are triggered by the inner critic, do not reply with an opposing opinion. That reaction will tie you into a web of back-and-forth with a voice trained much better than we in how to put us down. Instead, use the inner critic's commentary about us as a call, a bell that reminds us to perform a spiritual practice, such as loving-kindness. For instance, the voice tells us we will "fail as we always have." Neither argue nor agree, but go directly to your affirmation: "I trust myself to do the best I can and to handle what happens." Now the voice of the inner critic is a skillful means to help us evolve.

We can trust an inner healthy voice that advocates for us and is not critical of us. We are accessing not only the voice of sanity and reason but also the voice of encouragement that builds self-esteem. We can talk to ourselves like a kindly aunt or uncle. We distinguish what is happening from how we are feeling or believing things to be. We comfort ourselves and show understanding rather than rebuke ourselves for feeling so weakened by the reactions a trigger evinces.

Triggers evoke exaggerated or inappropriate emotional reactions. Our emotions are like muscles. They develop in healthy ways by being used appropriately. When we have hidden our anger most of our lives, for example, it becomes stunted. This is one reason a reaction may come out as awkward and exaggerated when we are triggered. As we practice knowing and showing our emotions, we will be less likely to react inappropriately to what triggers them.

When we are triggered, we lose our objectivity, and the wind may be knocked out of us. Thus, we can't easily be assertive and say "the right thing." We can reduce our reaction considerably when we take a breather. Let your ego calm down. Only when your ego is on hold can you respond to others with a nonjudgmental reporting of the impact of their behavior on us. Your assertion will then be much more rational. You can access your inner resource of self-calming patience and are not so strongly triggered next time.

Triggers thrive on our belief that we are alone in having them. They lose a major amount of their power when we realize that people we trust and admire are triggered in the same ways we are. Even enlightened people and saints can be triggered.

It may be difficult to remember that we have these resources. This is because they reside in the part of our brain that is offline when a trigger assails us. We will need a daily visible reminder—for example, a note on the fridge saying, "When you are triggered, you have resources." You can then name a resource you have learned from this article.

This suggestion works especially well when we are aware of our main triggers. Then, when they click in, we are more likely to go to the practices that help us deal with our triggers. That way, triggers can change from being on-ramps into reactions to becoming trusty bridges into healing.